JOURNALISM IN THE AMERICAS Blog

Hostilities against journalists and bloggers in Brazil leading up to municipal elections do not stop at censorship; media professionals also face a rise in attacks by candidate supporters. A news team from the magazine Época was threatened and forced to delete the pictures taken on their camera in the state of Minas Gerais, the publication announced Saturday, Sept. 15. In the northeastern state of Ceará, a television reporter was attacked while filming a package on Sunday, Sept. 16, reported the newspaper Tribuna Hoje.

Rocha told the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas in an e-mail that during the interviews another teamster approached, asking why the journalists were there and soon after the two were threatened. "Another wanted to come at the reporting team with a piece of wood but his colleagues held him back," he said. The union members also demanded that Pinheiro delete any photos he took in the city.